My Magic Mirror - 100x70cm

Normally I don’t post a lot on forums…but I was so impressed by the Magic Mirror and thought I would share my (almost) final result so it can help others create their Magic Mirror.

I was looking for something completely different (how can I turn on the screen of my wall mounted Windows Tablets via Motion Detection) when I found the Magic Mirror and thought “WTF is this?! This is really cool! I need to get one now! Oh crap, it’s 2am…well let’s find out what I need and get everything tomorrow and build it!”.

This mirror is actually “version 2”, “version 1” was mounted in an Ikea poster frame and was not deep enough to mount everything in it, but I wanted to get some experience and still put the foil on it etc., the only thing was that 30min after hanging it on the wall, “version 1” came off the wall completely…fortunately the 23" screen was still fine, and because I was 100% sure I wanted to have this, I sat down and created a better one, one that actually stays on the wall!

Version 2 was actually really easy to built:

1 hour to finalize the whole idea

2 hours to get all the parts

Next Day Delivery for the Mirror

2-3 hours to built everything

2 weeks to setup the actual Magic Mirror layout!

2 hours to create this topic

What parts did I need:

Plexiglass Two-Way Mirror 1000x700x3mm (€120,-)

Black vinyl for the back of the mirror (€15,-)

Wood for the (90cmx58cm) frame; 2 pecies 2100x40x44mm (€8,-)

4 Caps for on top of the screws (€7,-)

Some scews, tie-wraps, tape, cables, a power switch, 2 power sockets, etc. (€10,-)

Raspberry Pi 3 + Micro SD + Charger (€50,-)

Speakers (€12,-)

23" LG Screen

Mouse and keyboard

Some extra wires to get actually “+” and “-” and not only “+” behind the light socket!

The only real issues I had setting everything up (which I’ve read, others also experienced this), were:

I have setup the MMM-MirrorMirrorOnTheWall Skill which works fine, but I am also running Domoticz to control and monitor basically everything in my house and I am using HA Bridge so Alexa can talk to Domoticz to execute scripts etc. So, I have created a little script so I can also say things like “Alexa, turn on main/other mirror” or “Alexa, turn on/off camera 1/2” (Alexa talks to HA Bridge, HA Bridge talks to Domoticz, Domoticz executes the script (in this case it SSH into the Mirror and execute the script below)):

I didn’t notice heat is really a problem, except a little bit for the monitor board…although it now has way more room to let air out then when the back part of the monitor was still on it!
I was thinking about drilling some holes in the top of the frame to let the hot air out. There is also a small gap between the frame and the wall itself. On the RPi you can monitor temp as follows:

pi@mirror:~ $ vcgencmd measure_temp
temp=54.7'C
pi@mirror:~ $

I use a small script that shows temperature, but also shows it in Domoticz and sends a Telegram notification if the temperature gets too high: